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How to Make and Freez Tomato Juice - Easily! With Step-by-step Photos, Recipe, Directions, Ingredients and Costs

How to Make and Freeze Tomato Juice at Home - Easily!

Making and freezing your own tomato juice is also quite
easy. And imagine how much better it will taste in the winter, with the
flavor of home grown tomatoes! Just scroll down this page to see how to do
it, in easy steps and completely illustrated. I like it with the basil, but
you can also make plain tomato juice, too. If you
want to make a
Mixed tomato-vegetable juice
(like "V8") see this page.

Ingredients

Tomatoes (any quantity - see step one)

Lemon Juice (optional) (less than a cup)

Salt - (optional) 1 teaspoon salt to each quart of juice.

Equipment

Jar funnel ($2 at Target, other big box stores, and often grocery
stores; and available online - see this page) or order it as part of the kit
with the jar grabber.

Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars)-
Big box stores and grocery stores sometimes carry them; and it is
available online - see this page. It's a tremendously useful to
put jars in the canner and take the hot jars out (without scalding
yourself!). The kit sold below has everything you need, and at a pretty
good price:

Directions

Step
1 - Selecting the tomatoes

It's fun to go pick your own and you can obviously get better quality
tomatoes!

Wash, remove stems, and trim off bruised or
discolored portions of the tomatoes.

Quantity: An average of 23 pounds is needed per
canner load of 7 quarts, or an average of 14 pounds per canner load of 9
pints. A bushel weighs about 53 pounds and yields 15 to 18 quarts of
juice - an average of 31/4 pounds per quart.

At right is a picture of tomatoes from my garden - they are so much better
than anything from the grocery store. And if you don't have enough, a
pick-your-own farm is the pace to go! At right are 4 common varieties that
will work:

Top left: Beefsteak

Top right: Lemon Boy, yellow

Bottom left: Roma, paste-type

Bottom right: Better Boy

Also, you don't want mushy, bruised or rotten
tomatoes!

Caution: Do not use tomatoes from dead or
frost-killed vines. Green tomatoes are more acidic than ripened fruit and
can be canned safely, also.

Step 2 - Cut up the tomatoes and quickly put into the pot

To
prevent the juice from separating, quickly cut about 1 pound of tomatoes
at a time into quarters and put directly into a saucepan on the stove.
(If you are not concerned about juice separation, simply slice or
quarter all of the tomatoes at once into a large saucepan.)

Juicers? Can you use a juicer? Certainly! It will
eliminate step 6 and 7 later on, but, of course, you will need to simmer for 5
minutes (step 5). The one potential downside to using a juicer is that the
juice may later separate (clarify) into a top and bottom portion, for the
reasons already explained above.

Step 3 - Heat to boiling and keep adding tomatoes

Heat
immediately to boiling while crushing (I use a potato masher). Continue to
slowly add and crush freshly cut tomato quarters to the boiling mixture;
repeating steps 4 and 5. Make sure the mixture boils constantly and vigorously
while you add the remaining tomatoes.

Step 4 - Continue cooking

Simmer 5 minutes after you add all pieces. Crush, heat, and simmer for 5
minutes before juicing.

Step 5 - Sieve

Press the heated tomato juice through a sieve or food mill to remove skins
and seeds. I use the Foley food mill, shown at right

There is also a VERY nice, versatile strainer pictured at below! Click
on the links there or see the bottom of this page for more information and
to order! The VillaWare model can handle higher volumes than a Foley food
mill (without giving you cramps!) And yes, you can use your juicer, if it
can handle boiling hot liquids!

Step 6 - Add seasoning

You may add bottled lemon juice or citric acid to jars, as described in the next
paragraph, to acidify the contents. This helps avoid spoilage and increase
safety. this is really a precaution

Acidification: To ensure safe acidity in whole, crushed,
or juiced tomatoes, add two tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or 1/2
teaspoon of citric acid (such as "Fruit Fresh") per quart of tomatoes.
For pints, use one tablespoon bottled lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon citric
acid. Acid can be added directly to the containers before filling with product.
Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to offset acid taste, if desired. Four tablespoons
of a 5 percent acidity vinegar per quart may be used instead of lemon juice
or citric acid. However, vinegar may cause undesirable flavor changes,
compared with lemon juice or citric acid.

Seasoning: Add 1 teaspoon of salt per quart, if
desired. I also add 1 teaspoon of ground basil.

Step 7 - Fill the
containers and pop into the freezer

You may want to let the juice cool down a bit for an hour before you fill
containers and put it into the freezer.

This is the same type of standard canner that my grandmother used to
make everything from applesauce to jams and jellies to tomato and
spaghetti sauce. This complete kit includes everything you need and
lasts for years: the canner, jar rack, jar grabber tongs, lid lifting
wand, a plastic funnel, labels, bubble freer, and the bible of canning,
the Ball Blue Book. It's much cheaper than buying the items separately.
You'll never need anything else except jars & lids (and the jars are
reusable)! There is also a simple kit with just the canner and rack, and a pressure canner, if you want to do vegetables (other than tomatoes).
To see more canners, of
different styles, makes and prices, click here!

Average Customer Review:
Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Canning books

Canning &
Preserving for Dummies by Karen Ward
Average Customer Review:
Usually ships in 24 hours

The All New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving: Over 350 of the Best Canned, Jammed, Pickled, and Preserved Recipes Paperback - May 31, 2016

This is THE book on
canning! My grandmother used this book when I was a child. It
tells you in simple instructions how to can almost anything;
complete with recipes for jam, jellies, pickles, sauces, canning
vegetables, meats, etc. If it can be canned, this book likely
tells you how! Click on the link below for more information and
/ or to buy (no obligation to buy)

Can't find the equipment? We ship to all 50 states!

As my jars are cooling after i take them out of the canner, they sometimes
make a popping or hissing noise. Is this normal and safe?Yes, the lids are designed to flex and that's actually a key selling point.
You can tell if a jar hasn't sealed properly (after it has cooled completely) if
the lid flexes and makes a popping sound when you press the center of the lid
with your finger. The popping sounds while it is cooling is the lid being
sucked down by the vacuum that is forming inside the jar - which a normal part
of the sealing process. Hissing sounds are usually just escaping steam or
hot water evaporating on hot surfaces, also normal!

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